January 1957 — Vol. 38, No. 1 —
Let's Avoid Stress
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TOO MANY executives look upon life as the
Norsemen did upon heaven: the time was to be passed in daily
battles, with magical healing of wounds.
Everyone in out western civilization has to meet demands
on his nervous energy that were not made in former years.
The farmer, looked upon as living the most tranquil of lives,
has economic, social and political problems of which his grandfather
was ignorant. The doctor and the lawyer have clients pressing
at their office doors, and are conscious that others need
them elsewhere. Teachers have the task of maintaining discipline
in a brood more restless than ever before. Stenographers,
typing so many words a minute; operators of calculating and
accounting machines, with an unending flow of papers to process;
factory hands engaged in countless operations; bank tellers
meeting the wants of customers with flawless accuracy: everyone
is working under conditions that strain the physical, mental
and emotional structure built during ages of evolution.
Nor is out immediate environment ail that counts. From radio
reports that accompany breakfast to the late night news we
are under the pressure of baffling world difficulties. We
are exposed to tension, expecting some new crisis.
We need to take what precautions we can if we expect to
keep mentally and physically fit. Our failure to do so will
show itself with all its unfortunate consequences in the doctor's
office or a hospital bed.
Keeping fit is not simply a matter of taking physical exercise,
though that is important. It concerns both mind and body.
It requires that we case the stress of living.
What is stress?
Dr. Hans Selye, Director of the Institute of Experimental
Medicine and Surgery at the University of Montreal, has put
forward a concept of stress that has been called "the greates
single contribution to the realm of biology and medicine since
Pasteur."
He suggests that every disease, every accident and every
emotional upset produces stress in the victim. The body becomes
alarmed by the stress and tries to defend itself. The endocrine
glands pour out hormones, the heart beats faster, the liver
increases its supply of glycogen, the blood pressure rises,
and the activity of many internal organs is suspended so that
their energy may be diverted to the external muscles. We,
like our primitive ancestors, become tensed for fight or flight.
The physical wear—and—tear is of the same order
in an executive when his accountant gives him a month—end
statement in red figures as when his ages—ago forefather
caught sight of a prowling wild—beast on the horizon.
When stress continues too long, or is too frequently repeated,
or is too great, a break—down may occur in our defence
system. Said Dr. Selye when explaining his ideas to the Canadian
Club in Montreal three years ago: "Inadequate counter—measures
in the face of serious attacks may be the cause of disease
or death, but excessive defence reactions may likewise be
harmful if they are quite out of proportion to a negligible
threat."
The medical profession and those who are doing research
in the subject cannot look upon stress as a simple concept.
It is, indeed, complex to the point of being beyond adequate
treatment in a short essay. In his book The Stress of
Life published toward the end of 1956 (McGraw—Hill
Book Company Inc.) Dr. Selye deals with the idea in five divisions:
The Discovery of Stress; The Dissection of Stress; The Diseases
of Adaptation; Sketch for a Unified Theory; and Implications
and Applications. His closing chapters are or: "Philosophic
Implications" and "The Road Ahead".
Every year sees thousands of research papers prepared by
endocrinologists who are in all parts of the world, following
up Dr. Selye's concept. The British Medical Journal remarked
that no other theory in living memory has possessed to such
an extent the power to stimulate research. Dr. Selye's work
won for the University of Montreal the first grant ever made
to a Canadian university by the United States Government,
and it is supported by grants from foundations, individuals,
corporations and the Canadian government.
Some causes of stress
Improper mental states can cause trouble in out physical
make—up. A publication of the Metropolitan Life Insurance
Company says that fifty per cent of all people seeking medical
attention are suffering from ailments brought about or made
worse by such emotional factors as prolonged worry, anxiety,
or fear. In fact, out of a thousand diseases described in
a textbook of medicine, it is said that emotionally induced
illness is as common as all the other 999 put together.
How we think has a definite effect on how we feel. We translate
our woes from the language of the mind into the language of
the body.
Whatever we allow to affect our minds in the way of pain
or pleasure, hope or fear, extends its influence to out hearts.
Financial worries, a monotonous job, strain at the office,
emotional upsets in the home: these, and many more, may show
themselves physically as high blood pressure, digestive ailments
such as peptic ulcer and colitis, headache, skin disorders
and some allergies.
But you cannot go into a drug store and buy a bottle of
psychosomatic medicine.
The first thing to do when you feel unwell is to have your
doctor give you a thorough check—up. He will learn from
his tests and his questions whether there is something organically
wrong, and how much of your illness is derived from emotional
sources. Finding the cause is the first step on the way to
cure.
All emotions are not bad. Some are guides to protective
action. Pleasurable emotion is conducive to health. An invigorating
emotion unlocks new stores of energy and drives away fatigue,
it provides the zest of pursuit, the joy of striving, intense
interest in work, and renewed enthusiasm. As someone said,
the Irish cheer may signify nothing in particular, but it
is a mighly relief for the excited Celt.
Signs of stress
Modern invention and labour saving machinery have relieved
us of much physical drudgery, but there are signs that they
have increased our nervous strain.
Aided by our gadgets, we live at high speed. "We are always",
said Dr. J. B. Kirkpatrick, Director of the School of Physical
Education at McGill University in an address a few years ago,
"meeting deadlines, catching trains, grabbing a bite to eat.
Our toes are tramped on and our tempers are frayed as we fight
to get on board a street—car. We have lost some of the
amenities of living in this mad scramble."
These exasperations of the day get us keyed up. The tension
accompanies us home and keeps us awake, unless we have worked
out for ourselves an effective way of releasing it.
One evil result of our hasty living is that we so often
fail to solve our problems adequately. Much of the time we
are tangled up in the woolly words with which we clothe our
thoughts rather than with facts themselves. The result is
a state of anxiety.
It is wholesome to have fear when it is an alarm bell, a
warning of impending danger, but some of us go around in a
perpetual aura of anxiety, as if we still thought the world
to be fiat and that we might fall over its edge. This pervasive
anxiety prevents us from relaxing, keeps us tense. The protective
patterns set in motion by our bodies are overworked.
Moments of doubt
The best executives have moments of doubt and weariness,
but rise from their depression by recurring to principles
they have learned. One of life's most health—going virtues
is to be able to meet disappointment and frustration well.
An angry outburst is a poor response to disappointment,
because it heals nothing, replaces nothing of what has been
lost, and takes its toll of the body. An angry man is not
one who is doing something, but one who is suffering something
to be done to him. He is allowing his dignity to be lowered,
and that is bad enough, but he is also interfering with his
digestion, disrupting his circulation, and putting undue strain
on his body's defensive organism.
Some people, instead of being disappointed after an event,
forestall events. They wrench them of out their place in the
future, and worry about them today. Dean Inge remarked that
worry is interest paid on trouble before it falls due.
What is worry? It is with us when, as Mrs. Elizabeth Browning
said so well in one of her poems, "we walk upon the shadow
of hills across a level thrown, and pant like climbers."
In extreme cases worry turns into what is called "doubting
folly", in which a person doubts whether he can trust his
own senses. He is forever returning to see if he has locked
his safe, expressed himself properly in a letter, told his
secretary about an appointment, and the like.
There are many illustrative cases in Psychomatic Medicine,
a textbook by Weiss and English (W.B. Saunders Co., Philadelphia).
Chronic worry can bring on dyspepsia, ulcers, common colds,
arthritis, asthma, and a host of other diseases.
Most common, perhaps, is fatigue of one sort or another.
There is nothing dramatic about fatigue. It creeps upon us,
seeping through our bodies like poison. We consult a competent
physician, who tells us we have no sign of tuberculosis, heart
trouble, or any other demonstrable disease. There is nothing
wrong with our body machinery, but we still feel tired. We
get our wires crossed: the wrong messages come through to
the brain.
Boredom sets up stresses that give us feelings of fatigue.
Long hours at a desk, repeated day after day, result in muscular
tension that can be more physically fatiguing than heavy manual
labour. The small boy who has to sit through a ponderous sermon
gets the wriggles because of static tenseness. Sherlock Holmes
said to Dr. Watson: "I never remember feeling tired by work,
though idleness exhausts me completely."
Fatigue may be brought on by too much conversation. Energy
is wasted in unnecessary speech. Some people, like Voltaire,
literally live on talk but most of us would gain something
both physically and mentally by retreating into silence at
periods during every day.
What to do about it
What can one do if one feels under stress, fatigued, run
down? The first thing is to have an examination by a physician.
Today's physicians do not look only for organic disease, but
seek the cause of unfitness in social and personal factors.
There is danger in self—medication. At a meeting of
the American Medical Association scientific section in November,
members were told of the dangers revealed by research into
the unscientific use of tranquillizing drugs. People do not
react in the same way to pills that relieve stress. Some become
depressed or develop psychoneurotic difficulties, while others
feel so free of pain that they fail to take necessary medical
measures, or are so energized that they neglect to take proper
rest.
It goes without saying that good work conditions contribute
to physical and mental well—being. In one office, efficiency
was increased, errors were reduced, and absenteeism was lowered
by decreasing the noise level from 75 to 50 decibels. Comfort,
ability and health are added to by adequate ventilation assuring
a sufficient supply of oxygen. Proper lighting contributes
its share.
Some people may find it necessary to change employment,
but many more can improve their health just by changing position.
Stress in one area may be relieved by shifting part of the
load to another, as when the man who is so unfortunate as
to have to carry home a heavily laden brief case shifts it
from hand to hand. To walk around one's office or home at
periods is a break that relieves physical and mental stress.
There is stress—release value in the old rocking chair.
We need not accept hurry and tension as unavoidable, allowing
ourselves to be pressed down by the sheer weight of things
to be done. Dr. William Osier, distinguished and beloved tutor
of hundreds of medical students, the first man to win an international
reputation for Canadian medicine, wrote: "the ordinary high—pressure
business or professional man suffering from angina pectoris
may find relief, or even cure, in the simple process of slowing
the engines."
Too many men and women exceed what is necessary. They are
not content to be eminent, but compromise their victories
by extra effort. Success incites them to greater activity
and more urgent endeavour. The only solution they know for
their mounting need of self—expression is by way of working
harder. They become tense and anxiety—ridden. They burn
themselves out.
That picture is all too common. Yet the very men who are
putting so great strain on their physical capacities know
very well that it is in moments of relaxed and easy work that
they are more efficient: that their most rewarding successes
are scored when, having determined upon a course of action,
they unclamp their intellectual and physical machinery and
let it run free.
Relaxing little tensions
Our ability to relax is one of the surest symptoms of our
mental health. After we have been keyed up to accomplish a
task, we need to slacken off instead of whipping ourselves
into new exertion. If we relax away the little tensions as
they occur we stand a very good chance of preventing the accumulation
of big tensions.
These small relaxations are simple. When listening to an
uninteresting speaker, slacken your muscles; when commuting
in train or street—car, close your eyes; when waiting
for a caller to be ushered in, look out the window.
But don't make the resolve to become strenuously relaxed,
cost what it will, for the rest of your lire. When he was
introducing The Stress of Life to the public in November,
Dr. Selye warned that a vacation in Florida may not be the
right thing for a busy executive. "Activity may be his man's
way of relieving pressure. He may build up more internal pressure
idling than if he were at work."
Every person must find out what his needs are in the way
of relaxation just as everyone needs to estimate his needs
in the way of sleep. The sleep requirement may range from
an hour or two a day to twelve hours. We should leave our
troubles at the bedroom door, refrain from looking at our
bank books late at night, abstain from talking politics after
9 p.m., and compose anger and tantrums before retiring. We
may even, through sleep, escape for a while from our own company,
and that escape is not a bad thing.
In between work and sleep come hobbies. Some people profess
to regard "hobby" as a word to laugh at, but when it means
a sincere interest in something outside our jobs it bas a
physical and mental value that is not at all ridiculous.
Wise use of our leisure holds the germ of survival in our
complicated civilization. Play, fun and laughter are agents
of health. They promote digestion, soothe our nerves, stimulate
circulation, give power to the heart, and ward off the feeling
of old age. Out leisure is a time to stretch our limbs and
let go out tensions, to laugh and be cheerful.
William James gave a lecture entitled "The Gospel of Relaxation."
It was in his series of talks to teachers on psychology in
1915. Here is his advice: "the sovereign voluntary path to
cheerfulness, if our spontaneous cheerfulness be lost, is
to sit up cheerfully, to look round cheerfully, and to act
and speak as if cheerfulness were already there."
The executive's job
The stresses associated with the management of a business,
a class—room or a home can have a definite effect upon
health. Leadership bas its price: but its toll can be cut
down.
What is the inescapable characteristic of the executive's
role? Its tyrannical demands in terms of time and continuous
mental and physical pressure. The top man can never escape
responsibility. Weighty decisions expose him to frequent emotional
strains. Advisory and administrative duties build tension.
The man who, knowing these things, does nothing more about
them than gnaw his nails is a major problem in his organization,
a grade—A candidate for executive neurosis.
It is an attribute, not a fault, that the executive has
so many things to think about. His alert mind finds ten things
to be concerned about while the dullard worker can think of
only one.
Such a man should not be content with keeping his belt in
the same notch where it was five years ago. It is, of course,
important to have firm abdominal muscles instead of flabby.
To be a good executive you must first be a good animal.
But something more is needed if a man is to keep his equanimity
in a world full of stress. It is when an executive bas to
lead his company or department under unusual strain that his
qualities are actually tested. That demands the inner calm
that follows a frank facing of difficulty and fear and disappointment
and even prospect of disaster.
Let's ease the pressure on ourselves by admitting the impossibility
of being a success by every standard, of being always right,
of never suffering a set—back. Many of our tensions stem
from trying to act the role of supermen.
Well—balanced people of brilliant ability think little
of admitting their failures. Such people conserve their power.
They surfer injury every once in a while, but they recuperate
from the wounds inflicted by "the slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune" because they have a reserve of strength not used.
The best balanced people are not obsessively devoted to
their jobs, but have a natural rhythm in work and rest, an
answer in part at least to the stress of living, equalizing
wear and tear on their bodies.
What to aim at
The end result of balanced living should be peace of mind,
though it will be made up of different ingredients in different
people. Peace of mind is within reach, but it requires thought
and action. It is the one sure and abiding answer to the evil
of stress and tension.
In the specialization required of most people today we have
forgotten in part how to live. We are not well—rounded
people with broad appreciation of life. Joy in sunlight, birds
and flowers is left chiefly to the poets; delight in line
and curve is left to the artist; drama and make—believe
belong to the stage. But enjoyment of ail these is the right
and privilege of the whole human race, contributing to both
mental and physical vigour.
Each of us has a ration of one body with one set of organs
to last him for life. This body, if it is to fill out its
span without unnecessary wear and break—down, must be
treated with simple mechanical understanding. It is not a
feeble, perishable weakling. It can be pushed far, very far,
and find resources to recover. But why place strain upon it
needlessly? We cannot avoid all the impacts of adversity,
but if we permit the stress of them to continue without taking
rational steps to relieve it, we surfer uncalled for damage.
The fit man can depend upon his body and mind to remain
fresh through crowded days of work, through patience—trying
conferences and through critical periods. But this fitness
can only be maintained by mental alertness that detects stress
and offsets it; that recognizes tension for a debilitating
state, and releases it; that sees worry as a fruitless expenditure
of energy, and conserves power by taking wise action about
problems.
Perhaps, too, we should cease admiring jerk and snap and
speed for their own sakes. It is what we accomplish that counts,
not the fireworks of exhibitionism.
Published by RBC Financial Group. All editions from the RBC
Letter collection are available on our web site at www.rbc.com/responsibility/letter.
Our e-mail address is: rbcletter@rbc.com.
Publié aussi en francais.
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